Giant West Bank pump station under way

Susan Poag / The Times-PicayuneDignitaries and guests were on hand during a ceremony hosted by the Army Corps of Engineers on Friday at the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway West Closure Complex. The $1 billion project under construction will provide a storm surge barrier for Plaquemines, Jefferson and Orleans parishes on the west bank of the Mississippi River.

Four backhoes and a bulldozer scoured the sides of an enormous 26-foot-deep pit Friday that will become the foundation for the world's largest drainage pump station near the confluence of the Harvey and Algiers canals.

Workers readied two towering cranes that will drive 1,300 steel pilings 130 feet into the ground to support the 13-bay pump station, which will have a footprint equal to two football fields.

The project is so massive that it was cheaper to build a temporary concrete-mixing plant nearby than to truck in the 180,000 cubic yards of concrete that will be used.

The pump station is part of a $1 billion project to build a pair of floodgates to block storm surge from entering the two canals, the centerpiece of the Army Corps of Engineers' efforts to upgrade 66 miles of West Bank levees and floodwalls.

The corps provided a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the project Friday afternoon at a ceremony attended by several public officials, including U.S. Reps. Anh "Joseph" Cao, R-New Orleans, and Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson.

"This is one of the largest projects the corps has going on anywhere in the world," said Garret Graves, chairman of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority. "It's an absolute anchor for the hurricane protection system here."

Two sector gates totaling 300 feet will be built across the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway just south of the Harvey and Algiers canals, turning 25 miles of levees and floodwalls lining the canals into a second line of defense.

To prevent interior flooding when the gates are closed, the new pump station must match the output of nine smaller pump stations that discharge rainwater runoff into the canals.

The new station will be able to pump 20,000 cubic feet of water per second, enough to fill an Olympic-size pool in less than 5 seconds and double the capacity of Pump Station No. 6 on the 17th Street Canal.

Known as the West Closure Complex, the project is being built by Gulf Intracoastal Constructors, a joint venture of Kiewit Corp., Traylor Bros Inc. and four other companies that will employ up to 1,000 workers at the site.

Several speakers heralded the project as an example of inter-governmental cooperation as numerous local, state and federal agencies worked together to avoid threatened lawsuits from property owners and minimize the impact to the federally protected Bayou aux Carpes swamp.

Susan Maclay, president of the West Bank levee district board, said she hopes the project signals a commitment by the corps to treat both banks of the Mississippi River equally.

"This is a day we've been waiting 40 years for," she said. "While the east bank had a completed system that failed during Hurricane Katrina, the West Bank system was never finished."

Col. Alvin Lee, commander of the corps' New Orleans district office, acknowledged that just 40 percent of the West Bank system had been built when Katrina hit.

"This project will be instrumental in closing those gaps," he said. "Hurricane Katrina was a clear wake-up call for the West Bank and the Corps of Engineers."

Friday's event capped a week in which the corps held a three-day closed-door summit at a Metairie hotel to brainstorm ways to cut $200 million to $300 million from the project to keep it under budget.

Tom Podany, chief of the corps' protection and restoration office, said it's unclear whether the goal was met because the corps is still reviewing the proposals.

"This is part of the normal process of doing cost containment and trying to find the best value," he said. "We're looking at different construction techniques to keep the project under budget and on schedule."

The floodgates are expected to be completed by June 2011, but the pump station won't be at full capacity until 2013, corps officials said.

Strong gusts kept six flags near the podium flapping wildly throughout the 30-minute ceremony, occasionally drowning out the speakers.

"This is like the opening scene from 'The Wizard of Oz.' I think we're all going to get swept onto the yellow brick road," quipped Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard. "But this project shows that we're already on the yellow brick road to progress and security. You don't build a $1 billion project unless you're here to stay."

••••••••

Paul Rioux can be reached at prioux@timespicayune.com or at 504.826.3785.